Disney and Rob Marshall Developing New Original ‘Mary Poppins’ Film

As Disney continues to reboot old animated favorites into live-action features, the studio is now looking to team with its “Into the Woods” helmer for a new take on one of its classic musicals.

Sources confirm to Variety that Disney is developing a new “Mary Poppins” musical with Rob Marshall set to direct.

John DeLuca and Marc Platt, who also worked with Marshall on “Into the Woods,” will serve as producers on the pic.

Insiders confirm the new film will take place in London 20 years after the first film and will take storylines from the P.L. Travers’ children books focusing on the magical nanny’s continued adventures with the Banks family.

The original film starred Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke in the story of a nanny who came to work for a banker’s unhappy family in pre-World War I England. The film was a huge hit, grossing $100 million at the box office, and earned five Oscars including one for Andrews as best actress.

Disney has reaped rewards recently by turning their classic animated pics like “Alice in Wonderland” and “Cinderella” into live action hits, and is now turning its attention to classic live-action films.

When it comes to reteaming with Marshall on the pic, the “Chicago” director has had a knack for taking Broadway hits and turning them into big screen successes. “Into the Woods” not only earned $199 million worldwide but also landed Meryl Streep an Oscar nomination.

Marshall is repped by CAA. The news was first reported by Entertainment Weekly.

I agree that the movie is iconic, and I find it wonderful. BUT, the books are also iconic, and even more wonderful, and if Disney wants to put proper effort into putting on film some of the many stories contained in those books, that were not in the first movie, I’d love to see it. I’d be even more pleased if they choose to be more faithful to the tone and feel of the books, unlike the first movie. If so, it will be quite a different animal, and wonderful in a very different way, so no slur on that earlier film.

Why can’t they use Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke for the sequel with what they can do with makeup they can make them look younger. I know Julie Andrews can’t sing anymore but it just wouldn’t be Mary Poppins without her.

I never saw the original and have zero interest in this latter-day version. Musicals are tricky at best and I rarely like them. Les Mis was terrific on film even though I didn’t much care for the play; having the cast sing live while shooting made all the difference in the world.

Wow, fully 90% of the people who have replied here obviously haven’t read the article. This is a sequel, not a remake. I’ll admit that I was somewhat taken back from the headline but then I read the article. It clearly says it’s a sequel. It clearly says it set 20 years later. There’s been all sorts of sequel that have worked. Then I saw that Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman are writing the music and lyrics and suddenly this became an interesting project. I love their work on Hairspray. Mark Sherman is one of the best composers working on Broadway. Let’s give me a chance and see what they do.

At least of it is 20 years later, Burt will probably be dead and we won’t have to hear “a chimney sweeps rucky as rucky can be.”

Funny that you referred to the composer as “Marc Sherman” (after, of course, getting his name correctly on first mention), given the name of the original movie’s songwriters. I don’t know that Shaiman and Wittman would be my first choice for this score, but they might do a great job, and it’s promising that the plan is to “take storylines from the original book.” Of course, I don’t think any of the books’ stories took place that far in the future from the first, though it’s been a LONG time since I read them, so I might be wrong. Anyway, I hope they might come up with something more true to the books’ tones than was the original movie, as wonderful as it was, in its way. Too bad we can’t have Stephen Sondheim write the songs, as he’d intended all those decades ago.

By which you mean they ruined the musical THE SOUND OF MUSIC when they made that movie of it, starring Julie Andrews? Because a beautifully produced production of the ORIGINAL script and score of SOUND OF MUSIC so far outshines the movie, there’s just no contest. The movie is, of course, nevertheless, a pretty well done thing, but with numerous gaping flaws, and not nearly as good as it should have been. When I was taken to the movie during its original run (I was a little kid), it was a bitter disappointment to find they’d completely cut out my favorite songs in the show! So many changes were for the worse, and it’s just a shame that so many people have the incorrect impression that the movie is the original. It is not, and unfortunately, over the years, some changes from the movie have been incorporated into stage versions. When I was finally able to see a production that was completely faithful to the original script and score, with full orchestra and excellent cast, production values and direction a couple of years ago, it was evident just how much better it was than any other productions I’d seen, and than the movie was. What the movie writers did with the scene where Rolf discovers the Von Trapps in the cloister, and what he then does, that alone should have had those writers put in prison for awhile. It was a stab wound into the heart of the show, and equivalent to pissing on the grave of Oscar Hammerstein II. People forget that these guys actually REALLY were artists, and knew what they were doing. If only other folks would write their own shows, and stop messing up those of masters from the past.

MARY POPPINS sucks in any medium. The songs are cloying, the story is non-existent and the characters are too awful to live. But what do you expect when the original books were garbage to begin with? And their creator, Helen Lyndon Goff, was a horrible, horrible person. Bringing her and her toxic, anti-life philosophy into the Disney fold was one of the biggest mistakes Walt ever made. He wasted 20 years of his life trying to please that harridan, and the undeserved success of that film was nothing but luck.

And Rob Marshall is a hack. His version of ANNIE makes John Huston’s look like a masterpiece in comparison, and CHICAGO would have been better served by actors who could actually sing and dance and a director who didn’t have to resort to editing the musical numbers in a cuisinart to disguise their lack of suitability for their respective roles. And before NINE, there was already a musical version of 8 1/2: it was called ALL THAT JAZZ. CHICAGO should be remade to erase the stench of Marshall.

But the hack writing of Helen Lyndon Goff and the hack direction of Rob Marshall deserve one another. This pretty much guarantees I will never see another Disney film again as long as I live.

Wow, just wow. What a hilarious rant from someone who is obviously a little “too invested” in Hollywood. To say they will “never see another Disney film again as long as I live” shows a slight slant towards mental instability. None of this means beans. Get a life dude. Jeez Louise.

There are so many things wrong with this story, I just don’t know. What’s next Hollywood, remakes of The Godfather, Gone with the Wind or The Wizard of Oz? Somewhere Dame Julie Andrews is screaming for no apparent reason.

Walt hated the very idea of sequels (he only permitted them for a couple of the studio’s low-budget comedies, such as “The Monkey’s Uncle”) and was adamant about not making another Poppins picture. Good to see his legacy is being respected.

Yeah, overall, sounds like a bad idea. The original is such a classic, a hard to explain mix of pathos, humor, animation and fantasy that works extremely well. I modernized CG Mary Poppins sounds depleting to the legacy.

2 decades would bring it close to WW2 – which Peter Pan:Return to Neverland was set – now Disney is stealing it’s own ideas? What about Travers not wanting Disney to adapt additional stories – even after Walt’s death? Is the estate disregarding her wishes, supposedly stated in her will (Urban myth?)

Why isn’t Richard Sherman on as a consultant? (Even at 87 he’s better than most composers in hollywood!)

Ditto for me! MARY POPPINS remains, in my estimation, the crown jewel in the Disney canon – possibly the finest original musical ever produced for the screen. I saw it during its original engagement back in ’64 when I was a 7-year-old kid, dazzled by the technology and every freakin’ minute of it. It continues to charm and delight audiences to this day. Why does Disney feel the need to re-boot and/or exploit all of their classics? Not looking forward to this “sequel” at all!